November goodbyes - our last full month in Norway

 

Pilar was a member of our Young Single Adult presidency from our first day in Bergen. She left for a screen-writing school in Los Angeles on November first. She may get back to her native Peru someday but after two years of school and mountain climbing in Bergen she will now be in Dodgertown for a while. Lucky for us we can visit her again soon.

 

 

Dinner with the wonderful Herland family - three generations worth - was a farewell gathering for us and for Pilar. Alexander with his arms around two of his brothers is one of our YSA's. We were treated to the most tasty Norwegian traditional foods, including venison that was taken on their land during the recent hunting season.

 

 

"Hurrah for deg!" We sing the birthday song to Michelle at yet another special dinner this month.

 

 

Dinner for the "seniors" included us and featured special Danish style cooking.

 

Daily walks pass over this little river which runs through the town of Nesttun. Since the last week in August we have had mostly rain so the river is running full bore. We have had maybe a dozen sunny days in the past three months. Even the locals are complaining, which is rare in a area that has this saying: "There's no such thing as bad weather - only bad clothing." (it rhymes in Norwegian)

 



I have been waiting for this house to fall down for 15 months now.

 



 

Downtown Nesttun is back to normal with the completion of the new lightrail line right down the middle of main street. The extention of the line from downtown Bergen will open in the summer of 2013.

 

 

There was a great deal of interest in the US elections here. Norwegians as a group are very knowledgeable about world politics. Our never-ending election cycle is totally different from what goes on here. This URL could be Republican headquarters in Norway but it is the address for a children's store called Mitt Rom or My Room.

 

 

On one of those sunny days we took the gondola (far left) up to the top of the highest of the seven mountains of Bergen. Ulriken is a little over 700 meters above sea level. The view of the city and the outer islands is even better than the view from Fløyen.

 

 

The gondola is small and the temperature dropped below freezing quickly.

 

 

We were treated to a clear view as we clomped along over the rocks and frozen ground.

 

 

The communications tower is lighted with bright colors at night.

 

 

The professional fotball klubb in Bergen is named Brann or "Fire." They were organized in 1908 and play all their matches to a packed house. Bergensers may have their favorite "Champions League" or other European league teams but as far as Norway's pro league goes there is only Brann.

 

Haukeland Sykehus is THE hospital in Bergen. It is a teaching hospital too. It is part of the impressive public medical system here.

 



 

Across the downtown area and out to sea.

 

 

Craggy islands connected by cookie cutter two lane suspension bridges make up the whole patchwork of islands in western Norway.

 

 

So, all of a sudden these three people inflated their kites and jumped off the mountain. This is a great place for para-gliding. Aside from freezing your tush off it looked like great fun to sail around over the city and then land on one of the practice fields by Brann Stadion.

 

 

Soaring over the city

 

 

Winter is coming on. The leaves are almost all down. Most of the boats have been taken out of the docks. We get one last look at the city from a mountain top that will soon be covered with snow.

 

 

Last of all, here is our little crew of missionaries, out in the weather as usual. We have a "tripanionship" and our two Elders. One of the best surprises of our mission has been how thoroughly enjoyable these young men and women have been. We are losing three of this group on Wednesday. We will get our last group that same day. What a pleasure to serve with them all.



Stockholm, Sweden Temple

A Norwegian ward temple trip is an event. We flew to Stockholm with a large group of ward members for the second of two weeks that were "our weeks" for 2012 at the temple. We arrived late on Monday afternoon and checked in at the guesthouse.

 

The facility is a large rooming house with many apartments and dorm rooms.

 

 

Our room was cozy but well equipted with a full kitchen. We just had to buy the food.

 

 

In the evening the people gathered to sing songs or play games.

 

 

Shanna was part of a Chilean version of Phase 10 that lasted long into the night.

 

 

The people who stay in the dorms and those who want to make a group meal get to use the big kitchen that is adjacent to the lounge / dining area. You get you own refrigerator and storage area.

 

 

The Stockholm Temple was dedicated in 1985. It is not a large temple by any means but it has the capability to run simultaneous sessions in different languages. It is lovely and very peaceful inside and outside.

 

 

It was considerably cooler in Stockholm than in Bergen as we snapped this picture on the way back from an evening walk.

 

 

This is the name of the little suburb where the temple is located. We departed on Thursday just before noon so we could make our 2:40 flight.

 

 

Swedish colors! We had the train to ourselves most of the way.

 

 

At Stockholm Central Station we connected with the airport bus and made our way through the city and on to the motorway another 45 minutes to Arland airport and our flight home.

 

Once home we had one day to get ready for a road trip to Stake Conference. This was to be the first stake conference in the history of our brand new Drammen Stake. We washed, packed, and switched the tires from summer tires to our winter mud and snow tires.

 

 

Most of the waterfalls are just trickles this time of year but this one looked big still. On closer inspection we noticed that it was totally frozen! Cool, I mean cold! The drive to Drammen is about seven and one-half hours.

 

 

Hard to see with these out the window shots but really it was frozen.

 

 



 

Stake conference is all about meetings. This was taken at the Saturday evening general meeting. The youth choir sang a beautiful original composition by one of our Bergen Ward members.

 

 

Ane-Rebekka was one of our passengers and was a speaker at the conference. She is a medical student here. We stayed in Drammen and as soon as we could get away we started the trek back home.

 

We let the Tom-Tom GPS system plan our route and it threw in this short cut over the mountains. We were in snow for the first couple of hours of the trip. I am glad I had the snow tires on the V-dub.

 



 

However, once we rejoined the regular highway we fell into line behind Brother Gjevik and the other Bergen Ward caravan. No more snow, just cold and dry.

 

 

Always great to be back home. The fall nights are starting earlier and earlier. We are back in our scarves and wool coats. This is our view off the deck.

Money

 

We use our bank card for just about every transaction but these are all of the coins (1, 5, 10 & 20 kroner) and some of the foldin' money. Today the Norwegian Krone (Crown) is trading at 5.75 to 1 U.S. Dollar. That means that 1 Krone is worth 17.3 cents. The Krone is the smallest coin now in circulation. Just last spring they stopped using the 50 øre (urr-ah) piece. It was worth half a krone. So now every cash transaction rounds up or down to the nearest Krone. The one and five Krone coins have holes in them. Back in early norse times coins had holes so they could be kept on strings. The traditional holes survive but not the strings. Let's look at some prices. You have to realize with these prices that they include a 25% sales tax on all transactions: goods, food, services...everything. Tips are also included in restaurant prices along with the sales tax. So, here we go.

 

 

This is a 1.75 liter carton of light milk about like a half gallon of 2% milk at home. Cost: kr24.40 or $4.22.

 

Gasoline was down this week so this price was a real bargain. Kr13.79 per liter works out to $9.18 per gallon. Last week the price was kr15.40 or $10.25/gal. The gasoline prices fluctuate that much overnight sometimes.

 



 

How about a car to put that petrol in. I snapped this picture of a VW Passat wagon, a popular mid-cost car; cheaper than the trendy and cool BMW, Audi, and Volvo wagons. I chose this car because I priced one the other day. Cost: kr589,000 or $102,434. I priced a Honda Civic and it was only kr245,000 or $42,608.

 

 

When winter hits cars get really dirty here so a trip through the drive through car wash is an option. The silver wash will set you back $25.91 but if you go for the platinum plus you will pay $57.22.

 

 

Maybe the idea of driving is too rich for your blood. There is always the bus, which is part of an outstanding public transportation system. Your ticket will transfer to light rail or other busses to whatever your destination in Bergen may be. One way bus/light rail cost: kr27 or $4.70.  A monthly bus pass runs about $110.

 

 

We went to Egon, a cool little restaurant near us, for a cheese burger and a soda. Egon is about like Applebee's. The burger came with some fries and a generous tablespoon of cole slaw, all for kr420 or $73.

What hasn't been mentioned is that the Norwegian economy is booming. Wages are sky high to match the prices. The Norwegian consumer economy is in fantastic shape and Statoil keeps finding more and more oil in the North Sea. The government has set aside almost all of the profits from oil and natural gas in a sort of rainy day fund. They don't have a national debt. They have a surplus of about $850 Billion US dollars. By the way there are only 5 million Norwegians.

 

So, where are housing prices in all of this? The little blurb below came from a local real estate company. It pictures the apartment building that is next door to us. It seems that someone just sold their apartment for kr3,275,000 or $569,565. This place has a subterranian garage, a little deck and a nice view to go with the three-room, 900 square foot apartment.

 

 

No, you won't find Bergen, Norway on any of those Yahoo news lists of top places for U.S. baby-boomers to retire. None the less it is a peaceful, clean, and beautiful - if a bit pricey - place to live.

 

 



September Visitors!

Fall already fell by the time Hal and Denise arrived on September 6. We donned our rainwear and set out to see Bergen and the fjord country.

 

We got a glimpse of the city in between rain squalls.

 

I am not sure if Edvard Grieg was this short but he stands ready to perform with his lucky rubber frog in his pocket near the concert hall on his old estate.

 

We found a different way down to Gudvangen. The road is a one-way series of switchbacks on a 19% grade. The newer road is a long winding tunnel.

 

The mist from one of the waterfalls covers the view of the valley below.

 

 

 Shanna, Hal, and Denise took the ferry around the mountains to Flåm. I drove through the two long tunnels (10 km and 5 km) to meet them at the end of their journey.

 

The ferry stopped in a couple places to drop the mail.

 

 

Shanna even coaxed a smile out of the guy who waited in the rain for the mailbag.

 



 

The villiages along this route are truely remote.

 

 

Once on land we all took off for a ride up Aurland Mountain Road, the old narrow road that cuts over the mountain instead of through it. The other driver got to back up to let me by.

 

This is Aurlandsfjord just above the town of Aurland. At the head of this fjord is the tourist town of Flåm.

 

 

Still Aurlandsfjord but looking the other way back to the mother fjord - Sognefjord.

 

 

Panorama of the two previous photos.

 

 

Your fear of heights will kick in on this overlook. It sticks out about 50 meters from the road straight toward the water. The glass partition gives you a little thrill as you stand out there as if in mid-air.

 

 

We drove five minutes more and found ourselves on top of the mountain on a moonscape. It was also snowing. We drove back to Bergen by way of the tunnels - including the "worlds longest tunnel" - 25 km long.

 

 

We took a sidetrip to Undredal to pick up some of their famous goat cheese but found the entire business community of the town closed. I did manage to take this photo. Good ad for dish TV.

 

 Just after 5 AM at Bergen airport on the 12th as we bid our tired visitors good-bye.

 

 

Then we were off to the store and into our kitchen. It was time to make Institute dinner

 

 

and dessert.